This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind
by Ivan Doig
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Paperback (19 February, 1980)
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Reviews (21)

Enjoyable
I thoroughly enjoyed the book.The clincher was the realism and affection written into the characters.The work shares a time and place long since gone in this country.It makes one wonder if their own generation can live up to the character and accomplishments of the ones in the book.

This House of Sky, Tim Gauthier
The House of Sky was a good book because Ivan Doig talks about his experiences he went through in the town of White Sulfur Springs. He talks about his fathers experiences while he was growing up and how he dealed with them.

Growing up in Big Sky Country
As a writer, Ivan Doig is something of a favorite son in Montana, and for good reason. His memoir is a rhapsody of affection for the land where he grew up -- the small towns, homesteads and ranches in the Smith River Valley, along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, extending north to the Blackfeet Reservation on the Canadian border. It's also a wonderful and often touching story of a father and son. Born in 1939, Doig begins his tale with the emigration of his forebears from Scotland to Montana. At the end, in the 1970s, he has emerged as a writer with a graduate degree, living in Seattle, with rich and deeply felt memories of the people and the land he has known -- the house of sky.

An only child, his mother dying when he is six years old, Doig is raised by his father, Charlie, who works various jobs, sheepherding, haying, moving from place to place, and for a while leasing a small ranch of his own, his son in tow. Charlie is a hard-working man, with a big heart and tender love for his son. Concerned by a turn of bad health, he is reconciled to his mother-in-law, who did not approve of her daughter's marriage to him, and the three of them become a family that remains together until Charlie's death at age 70.

The book captures and preserves in detail a way of life that has almost vanished from America. Doig tells of growing up in wide open spaces among livestock and wildlife, learning from his father the skills of making a living off the land and surviving against the odds. He attends small town schools, spending the winters in rented rooms, seeing his father and grandmother only on weekends. Much of his time spent with adults or alone, he grows up more quickly than his peers and learns to love solitude.

At 300+ pages, this is not a long book, but it's no page-turner. You find yourself reading it slowly, relishing the rich prose style that captures the poetry in this landscape of mountains, valleys, and plains, as well as the people, with their personal quirks, habits, ways of talking, and often eccentric behavior. In fact, the book reads much like a novel, full of stories, colorful characters, humor, pathos, suspense, and adventures. The vividness of Doig's writing reflects his training as a journalist, and I suspect that he may have been influenced more than a little by the novels of Thomas Wolfe. I recommend "This House of Sky" to anyone with an interest in the West, nature writing, books about growing up, family sagas, ranching and rural life. As a companion volume, I recommend Wallace Stegner's "Wolf Willow," about his boyhood in southwestern Saskatchewan. ... Read more

Isbn: 0156899825
Sales Rank: 29163
Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Doig family    4. Doig, Ivan    5. Fiction    6. Literary    7. Meagher County (Mont.)    8. Regional Subjects - West    9. United States - State & Local - General    10. Biography & Autobiography / Literary   

A Bend in the River
by V.S. NAIPAUL
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (13 March, 1989)
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Reviews (53)

A Masterpiece

What a great novel this is! It tells the story of Salim who left his family home on the coast to start a business in central Africa at a town on the bend in the great Congo River. The inhabitants of the town, natives and expatriates, are described with empathy and an eye for detail.

Naipaul also narrates the history of the town as it is connected to the ups and downs of history, with great detail. His writing style is compelling and elegant, while the plot and characterization are superb. In many ways, the book illumines the post-independence history of those Africans that are of Indian descent.

Most of them were traders and many of them went into a second diaspora after the tumult and political upheavals in Africa of the 1960s and 70s. I was particularly impressed by Salim's first experience of the voice of Joan Baez, when a record of hers was played at a party in the academic suburb next to the old town.

Naipaul's extraordinary talent comes through in every flowing sentence and in every well-chosen word. I'm not a great lover of fiction, but this book has enriched my mind. I highly recommend it to readers of serious fiction and to historians alike. I also recommend the travel book North Of South by Shiva Naipaul, the record of a journey through Africa that ties in very well with A Bend In The River.

One for the ages - outstanding "true" fiction
This story has all the hallmarks of great fiction: moving, thoughtful prose; exotic setting (a post-colonial African country); fascinating storyline; tragic characters; grand themes. This was the first Naipaul story I have read, and now I know what all the fuss is about.

I found the writing very full, every sentence very active, moving the story forward in a staggeringly complete way. Salim is an Arab-African of Indian descent. He moves from the east coast of Africa to a town situated on a "bend in the river" in a central African country, presumably the former Belgian Congo, ostensibly to run a rudimentary general store, but more likely to delay finding what his real objectives in life are. He wants to experience the so-called "European" colonial culture of the town, and gets involved in the Hellenic Club, pursues an affair with the wife of a prominent political figure, and mentors his family servant Metty, and a young African, Ferdinand. In both these latter characters we see the symbolism of the "new" Africa, and the struggles in asserting identity, manhood, authority and organization. We get a glimpse into the sham intellectualism surrounding the educated elite, a world that Salim is drawn into but ultimately rejects. We see a man go from a kind of hope to a lazy idealism, then inertia, failing to change his life or make key decisions while the world around him is changing. The struggles of the country under its new leadership and the resistance from within all occur in the backdrop until they take center stage; this same pattern describes Salim in his approach to it all. He does not confront the emerging chaos until it is almost too late.

We see the country and atmosphere change dramatically: "This piece of earth - how many changes had come to it! Forest at a bend in the river, a meeting place, an Arab settlement, a European outpost, a European suburb, a ruin like the ruin of a dead civilization, the glittering Domain of a new Africa, and now this." The "this" he is referring to is the decay of the idealistic "Domain" which is a kind of centre of learning, symbolic of the emerging sophistication of the African mind - it has become overrun with weeds and collapsed, seeming to revert to its more basic, tribal incarnation.

I am sure Naipaul has had his share of criticism for his portrayal of race, slavery and women. That has always struck me as an unfair assessment of any fiction writer, as if there had to be an agenda or belief system underlying a writer's writings. I find thebest fiction is usually where there is no agenda or motive, just a representation of real people and their idiosyncratic lives. I don't believe that he was necessarily trying to create a sympathetic character in Salim, just a realistic one. We live with a character who appears to be blown to and fro like a reed in the wind, making human choices but also steadily procrastinating.

At the end of this story, I felt as if I had been to central Africa, lived Salim's life, and had seen first hand the desolation and anarchy that overtook the once ideal-sounding "bend in the river". This is a book you can devour and then will chew on for long afterwards.

ClassicMasterpiece
I had read a number of essays from VS Niapaul but this was my first full novel and was blown away.He is truly exceptional.As soon as I began I felt almost as though I needed to sit up straight as I clearly had the work of a master in my hands and should show the respect it is due.I read this book several years ago actually and it started an interest in learning more about Africa.It has been a fascinating journey but even after reading many other wonderful books, I keep coming back to the ideas, emotions and and profound insights that began with this remarkable work.Other writers may fill in some detail of related areas but VS Niapaul's novel stands alone and complete, fiction or non. ... Read more

Isbn: 0679722025
Sales Rank: 20810
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. Literary    4. Fiction / Literary   

The English Patient
by MICHAEL ONDAATJE
Average Customer Review:
Hardcover (29 September, 1992)
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Editorial Review

Haunting and harrowing, as beautiful as it is disturbing, The English Patient tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in an Italian monastery as World War II ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. In lyrical prose informed by a poetic consciousness, Michael Ondaatje weaves these characters together, pulls them tight, then unravels the threads with unsettling acumen.

A book that binds readers of great literature, The English Patient garnered the Booker Prize for author Ondaatje. The poet and novelist has also written In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; two collections of poems, The Cinnamon Peeler and There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do; and a memoir, Running in the Family. ... Read more

Reviews (262)

Slow, slow and slow....not much more.
Ok, to be fair, the author won a Booker Prize for this book.There must be some attributes that I don't see.A very talented author friend complimented the style - very matter of fact...which it is and which the author has mastered.As for the plot - there isn't much of one.Four people come together in a ruined villa in Italy near the end of WWII.They each are haunted by their experiences of the war and they somehow find solice in each other's company.A chapter here and there I found very interesting - I thought perhaps the story was picking up.It quickly fell off into dullness again.I just don't know how to critique this book beyond my personal opinion that it was a very dull, slow-moving story with brief glimpses of interest and intrigue followed by more dull droning.I truly skimmed the last 100 pages with little interest.

Very lyrical and poetic!
Michael Ondaatje's "The English Patient," deals with four individuals who lived together in an Italian villa which used to be a hospital during World War II. There was the mysterious "English patient," who suffered tremendous burnt to a point that he was almost completely black who no one seemed to know what his name was or who he was and there was Hana, a nurse who took it upon herself to nurse and care for him.
In addition, there was Caravaggio who was a thief, spy, and a friend of Hana's father who stayed at the villa because of her. Lastly, there was Kip, a Sikh who was a sapper with the British forces and who fell in love with Hana. All four had baggage/burden of their own and this book deals with how lives intersected with one another. This setting of this book was of course the World War II.

This is not one of the easiest books to read as the author goes back and forth with each of the individual's stories and as Newsday wrote, it has "many-layered mysteries." At the beginning of the book, we don't really know much of the individuals but the author gradually released bits and pieces of their information. The style of the author was very poetic and lyrical and at times this posed a difficulty for me to fully comprehend the book. The pace of the book was a bit slow for my liking. I like the idea behind the book but I didn't really appreciate his style of writing.

Don't buy the audio version
I have amassed a rich collection of audio books and this is by far the worst. I bought it several years ago, started listening to it, and stopped halfway through. I just couldn't get into it. Recently, I tried to listen to it again, thinking maybe I missed something the first time around. It was just as bad. Whereas, with most audio books, the narration adds to the content of the book, in this one, it kills it. If you want to read this book, stick to the paperback version. ... Read more

Isbn: 0679416781
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - Historical    3. Historical - General    4. Historical fiction    5. Italy    6. Literary    7. Ondaatje, Michael - Prose & Criticism    8. War stories    9. World War, 1939-1945    10. Fiction / General   

White Hotel, The
by D. M. Thomas
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 September, 1993)
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Reviews (26)

An Unforgettable Novel
If you are under the age of 18, do not read this book.If you are easily offended by mature subject matter, do not read this book.
For all other readers, you MUST read this book.
When you first begin reading this novel, you will not understand exactly what is happening.Just relax and enjoy the beautiful imagery.Things that are initially confusing will be cleared up by the author at the appropriate time.The history and destiny of the main character is a mystery that must slowly be unraveled.
D.M. Thomas has carefully studied the work of Freud and the history of 20th Century Europe, and he has placed his entirely fictitious main character in a historically accurate environment.Unless you are a history professor, this book will expand your historical knowledge.
I must provide no other plot details because even the middle of the book contains surprises you should not know about before you begin the first chapter.
To borrow the words of professional reviewers, I agree that this novel is "imaginatively daring," "beautifully written," and "heart-stunning."The story will shake the core of your soul.

The most astonishing book I have ever read
D. M. Thomas' accomplishment in The White Hotel is unutterably profound. The book's power has stayed with me for more than twenty years and I will take its redemptive force with me to my grave. His prose has the force of the finest classical poetry inflamed with the psyche's deepest passions. The tale he tells of Lisa Erdman through three breath-taking almost musical variations on the seminal events of her life make a novel of unsurpassed humanity and give the reader the effect of having been immolated by the ineffable mystery of existence.

What the ....????
I found this book an indulgent male fantasy and was disturbed by the graphic language and lurid images Thomas created.I do not understand the need to shock a reader by using the most hideous language you can find.I would have been more interested in this book if it had not started so badly.I found the case study more interesting to laugh at the Freudian interpretation.And to not have to skip over the cursing!I didn't even want this book in my house after I had finished reading it in case someone ever picked it up to have a look! ... Read more

Isbn: 0140231730
Sales Rank: 200585
Subjects:  1. 1856-1939    2. 1873-1933    3. Ferenczi, Sandor,    4. Fiction    5. Fiction - General    6. Freud, Sigmund,    7. General    8. Psychoanalysts    9. Psychotherapist and patient    10. Ferenczi, Sandor    11. Fiction / General    12. Freud, Sigmund   

Tropic of Cancer
by Henry Miller
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 June, 1987)
list price: $11.95 -- our price: $8.96
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Editorial Review

No punches are pulled in Henry Miller's most famous work. Still pretty rough going for even our jaded sensibilities, but Tropic of Cancer is an unforgettable novel of self-confession. Maybe the most honest book ever written, this autobiographical fiction about Miller's life as an expatriate American in Paris was deemed obscene and banned from publication in this country for years. When you read this, you see immediately how much modern writers owe Miller. ... Read more

Reviews (130)

A Total Experience

TROPIC OF CANCER is crude, euphoric, base, philosophical, ecstatic, and immorally moral. It is written as the man lived his life. Henry Miller expresses life and people with a sharp eye and a sharper pen. He writes philosophy with the brilliance of a master making many of those praised men seem foolish and does it all with the language of a common man. Miller is not lofty. Miller is far from unknowable. He writes himself as a vagabond pop philosopher and violent lover. No other author can express such clarity of passion in his every word. Some may fault him for his jerky, somewhat erratic style of prose and the lack of flow throughout his writings. I have heard these comments before. But, Mr. Miller's works are not novels. They are not works of memoir/fiction. Often brutal and episodic as life is. The writing is real, heartfelt, lonesome, and desperate -- it cries from the gut of life. Henry Miller is a man who cannot contain his PASSION for life! I recommend it highly. Try it for yourself! Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "THE LOSERS CLUB: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, an exceptional, funny, entertaining novel I can't stop thinking about.

Sublime Art.
I'm still not certain as to where Henry Miller rates among American authors, but I have to say that I just read Tropic... for the second time and enjoyed it almost as much as the first.

As a word of warning to prospective readers, the first 50 pages is rather uneven and not reflective of the grandeur you'll find in the following 250.Don't put it down as you will be immeasurably rewarded.

Tropic of Cancer is an unprecedented blend of beauty, poetry, art, metaphor, and plot.Believe it or not, Miller may be at his strongest when he relays to the reader the astounding specifics of his squalid and lascivious existence in a Bohemian Paris that is gone forever.It'll make you want to buy a DeLorean, hire a mad professor, and travel back in time to a locale where there was no shame in pleasure and no shame in compulsively pursuing it.So much of the description is wonderously decorative and memorable.The city of Paris should erect monuments to Miller for the way in which he preserved an era for posterity.For some reason in Tropic... unlike in a book like "Kafka was All the Rage", the perpetual use of metaphor works and does not annoy the reader.Perhaps it is due to Miller's originality and flair for conversational description.He is a listener and the author describes the human voice perfectly.Miller is strongest when telling a story creatively as opposed to philosophizing.In Tropic... there is just enough story and characterization to make the work a resounding success.It's not a book for the timid, however.

History into context.
It seems to me, after reading the reviews of Tropic of Cancer, a lot of pretentious people who think they know absolutely everything, have said it was a bad piece of work. This makes me think they havent put the time era into context, or that they think, this having sexual references, it's like porn. I hope they realize, that their parents have had sex, and that things like this should be nothing new. Henry Miller is such an amazing and beautiful writer, because he did this when this sort of thing would have caused havoc. It's also the truth. You cant exactly say his writing is so erotic and sex based, when this sort of thing actually happened in 1930 France. It's like denying the Holocaust in history books, just because you dont like what happened.
Whether you like his writing or not, it was a big step in literature, and it's a good thing people who judge it as bad dont write our classic books, because there would be no diversity whatsoever, let alone non-fiction at all... ... Read more

Isbn: 0802131786
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General   

Snow Falling on Cedars : A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)
by DAVID GUTERSON
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (26 September, 1995)
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Editorial Review

This is the kind of book where you can smell and hear and see the fictional world the writer has created, so palpably does the atmosphere come through. Set on an island in the straits north of Puget Sound, in Washington, where everyone is either a fisherman or a berry farmer, the story is nominally about a murder trial. But since it's set in the 1950s, lingering memories of World War II, internment camps and racism helps fuel suspicion of a Japanese-American fisherman, a lifelong resident of the islands. It's a great story, but the primary pleasure of the book is Guterson's renderings of the people and the place. ... Read more

Reviews (650)

Everything You Could Want
If you have a short attention span, this book is definitely not for you. Snow Falling On Cedars by David Guterson is the detailed account of the trial for the murder of a local fisherman. The accused man, Kabuo Miyamoto, is a quiet, respectful Japanese American. Though the trial is taking place in 1954, you are often taken back to World War Two, and realize how those events affect the story. The characters are easy to identify with, and you find yourself wanting to read more to find out what happens to them. The twists and turns of the plot are captivating, also... for a minute. Then you lose interest in the annoyingly extensive descriptions. Sometimes you find yourself wondering if the end is even worth it. Well, take my word for it- it is. Snow Falling on Cedars has everything you could want to read- comedy, drama, romance, history, gore, etc. It does tend to get slightly graphic at times, but it's humorous. If you aren't a patient person, just put this one down. However, if you like to take your time with a good mystery, this novel is right up your alley.

Multi-layered , absorbing tale.
This novel unfolds from a tight bud to rose in full bloom. It begins with a two-dimensional snapshot of a courtroom scene, and expands with great depth as each person's personal story is unwrapped, like a gift in many layers of tissue paper. I read the "Acknowledgements" only after reading the book. I was very impressed by the amount of research done by the author to create this time and place so vividly and with so much detail.

The cover art of the copy I read truly depicts the colors that ran through my head as I read: icy grays and whites tinged with oily black, cold and dark black-blue seas, the grey of sea gulls, the bluish-gray shadows of the courtroom, muted foggy whites, even the initial somber-colored `auras' of the main characters. You almost need to read this book while wrapped in a quilt by a warm, cheerful fire.

The Island of San Piedro, where most of this story is set, brought me into contact with a lifestyle and place I know nothing about: the seclusion and closeness of a small, island, fishing/farming community and the harshness of life lived in proximity to cold, northwest seaside. The story centers around a murder trial. An islander of Japanese descent is accused of killing another member of the small, remote San Piedro fishing community: a neighbor with whom there was a history of tension between both of their families. The time period is the 1940s and 50s. The small island of San Piedro has not only been affected by WWII but its community had been badly scarred by the incarceration of the U.S. Japanese during the war years. The wounds had never really fully healed.

There is a lesson here in how we judge each other, how little we really know about the inner workings of our closest neighbors, and how quick we are to presume based on outward appearance, especially if someone's cultural heritage is imprinted on their features, and it is different from ours. We learn one thing: war teaches us to hate and the lesson stays with us long after the heads of State have decided to stop the fighting. We also learn, though, that love, real love, can bring out the best we have to give.

Beautiful
This beautifully written book escapes categorization.It is at once a historical novel, a love story, and a murder mystery.Snow Falling on Cedars takes place on an island in Puget Sound.When a white fisherman dies, suspicion is cast upon a Japanese-American fisherman, whose wife, Hatsue, had a childhood romance with Ishmael, the story's narrator and the editor of the local paper.As the trial unfolds, it takes the island back to the trauma it experienced in the 1940s when much of its population was taken away to the Japanese internment camps.

I loved this book because it pulled together so many different elements in such a beautiful way.The characters are true to life and I found myself completely invested in their history and their future.As a lover of history, I really enjoyed the portrayal of the effect the Japanese internment camps had on this small island community, even decades after all its residents had returned.I was taken in by Ishmael's story and engrossed in the trial and its outcome.A beautiful story.

Highly recommended. ... Read more

Isbn: 067976402X
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. Japanese Americans    4. Journalists    5. Literary    6. Trials (Murder)    7. Washington (State)    8. Fiction / Literary    9. Reading Group Guide   

Mating : A Novel
by NORMAN RUSH
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 September, 1992)
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Editorial Review

Had Jane Austen been in the Peace Corps in Africa in the 1980s, Mating is the book she might have written. Set in Botswana in the days before the end of apartheid, Norman Rush's novel is, essentially, a comedy of manners played out in Austen's approved milieu: a country village. Granted, the village in question, Tsau, is a utopian society created by the great American anthropologist Nelson Denoon, and run largely by and for disenfranchised and abused African women. Still, the issue that interests Rush (and the one that fueled Austen's novels) is the age-old question of who mates with whom, and why? The unnamed narrator is a 32-year-old postgraduate student in anthropology whose dissertation has just gone south on her. Drifting around the edges of the expatriate community in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, she first meets Denoon:

He was smiling at Kgosetlemang--the event was to be considered over with, clearly--and I could tell that his gingivae were as good as mine; which is saying a lot. I attend to my gums. People in the bush don't always attend to their oral hygiene, not to mention other niceties. There was no sign of that here. I of course am fanatical about my gums because my idea of what the movie I Wake Up Screaming is about is a woman who has to keep dating to find her soulmate and she's had to get dentures. I have very long-range anxieties.

Entranced by this potential soulmate, our heroine strikes out into the Kalahari Desert with a couple of donkeys and follows him to his utopia where sexual attraction, regional politics, and social experimentation make for very strange bedfellows, indeed.

Mating is a fiercely intelligent, hugely ambitious novel that takes on feminism, socialism, political corruption, foreign-sponsored rural development projects, and, yes, male-female relations in ways that are simultaneously hilarious and disturbing. Certainly Rush's language is a big part of what makes the novel work: the narrator's combination of elevated vocabulary and wacky non sequiturs is inspired. When, for example, Denoon explains to her that most of the women in Tsau are celibate and therefore so is he, she reflects that "of course the spiritus rector of a female community would need to be a sexual solitary, at least during the foundational period." She then wonders if "this situation was the analog of western series on television where the female watchership shrank to nothing when the producers let the marshal get married."Mating is remarkable for its wit, its acuity, and its ability to satirize without demeaning; it's also a heck of an entertaining story. Jane Austen would have been proud. --Alix Wilber ... Read more

Reviews (62)

Dictionary (Latin, English and French please)
Call me Ismael. Is it me or is our protagonist's name never stated? I noticed that sometime in the beginning and as I write this I can't refer to her by name.She looses (i mean loses) herself- maybe that's the point;she sees this and that aspect is delivered well. I never got over the feeling that it was a man writing behind the woman- but I enjoyed that as a way to explore "how a man sees a woman"- maybe.

I think I liked it, id est ( i think that means "that is" the only Latin I could contextually define). Id est - I know I won't forget it. All reviews =/- are well targeted and I agree with them- strange. I say- Worth the effort. Even though lack of quotations to mark dialogue was a challenge after awhile it felt Joyceian.- after that sensation, It was seamless. Thank you for the vocabulary trip. I confess I only looked up the last phrase (Fr). Misuse of one word, "fontanel" (or was that on purpose - I like that word, too. = otherwise ran circles around my intellect. dot dot dot at times I considered throwing the bath water out, but was too taken ith this baby. Slow read over weeks- then plowed through it at the end because it was too excrutiating wondering how "Strife" would devolve.)

PS -i tried to leave the stars blank).

Adventures in the Kalahari
Should an overly-ambitious novel be criticized for reaching too far, or should it be praised for all that it does achieve?Both, in my opinion, and so this book falls into that rare category of works that I have strong feelings for, both positive and negative.It's easy to call this a "big book" or a "tour de force," and you wouldn't be wrong for doing so.It is grand in intellectual scope, exploring themes both broadly and deeply.But at the same time I wonder if this book might have been better if it had aimed a bit lower.I'm thinking here specifically of major books that took on important issues of the day, but did so more simply, and ultimately more successfully.To Kill A Mockingbird comes to mind, perhaps the most important work of fiction ever on racism and social inequality in America.That book achieved its status of immortality not in spite of its brevity, but because of it.And I think Mating would have been more successful if Rush had taken a similar approach, instead of the Ayn Rand formula, which seems to work wonderfully for her but not for anyone else.

This is still a four-star book, however, and I would recommend it to friends without reservation.It is a book that makes you think about important issues, like poverty and social inequality and the injustices of the patriarchal structure.The ending, I have to admit, left me asking questions, and not in a good way.For a 500-page book it felt abrupt and somewhat disconnected from the rest of the book.But it's still worth definitely worth reading, and worthy of the National Book Award that it received.

Give us another, please,Mr. Rush.
Don't read this book if you do not have an academic turn of mind.The vocabulary is out of sight but is just part of the fun.I did not know what I was getting into.I saw on the cover that the book had won a national award and I knew I was going to be spending two weeks in a hammock in Panama so I bought it and was thrilled to learn that it takes place in Botswana where I had visited before with the terrific books of Alexander McCall Smith and the Miss Marple of Botswana. I read every sentence and laughed out loud many times.The ending itself is funny.The protaganist gets herself so zonked out on her honey that she has to repete exactly the foibles of her predecesor when he is for once, just trying to be honest with her. Of course, she is young and believes in everything she learned in college. I certainly hope Rush is rushing to get another big fat careful novel out to us. ... Read more

Isbn: 067973709X
Subjects:  1. Botswana    2. Fiction    3. Fiction - General    4. Literary    5. Love stories    6. Women anthropologists    7. Fiction / Literary    8. Reading Group Guide   

Possession : A Romance
by A.S. BYATT
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 October, 1991)
list price: $14.00 -- our price: $11.20
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Editorial Review

"Literary critics make natural detectives," says Maud Bailey, heroine ofa mystery where the clues lurk in university libraries, old letters, and dusty journals. Together with Roland Michell, a fellow academic and accidental sleuth, Maud discovers a love affair between the two Victorian writers the pair has dedicated their lives to studying: Randolph Ash, a literary great long assumed to be a devoted and faithful husband, and Christabel La Motte, a lesser-known "fairy poetess" and chaste spinster. At first, Roland and Maud's discovery threatens only to alter the direction of their research, but as they unearth the truth about the long-forgotten romance, their involvement becomes increasingly urgent and personal. Desperately concealing their purpose from competing researchers, they embark on a journey that pulls each of them from solitude and loneliness, challenges the most basic assumptions they hold about themselves, and uncovers their unique entitlement to the secret of Ash and La Motte's passion.

Winner of the 1990 Booker Prize--the U.K.'s highest literary award--Possession is a gripping and compulsively readable novel. A.S. Byatt exquisitely renders a setting rich in detail and texture. Her lush imagery weaves together the dual worlds that appear throughout the novel--the worlds of the mind and the senses, of male and female, of darkness and light, of truth and imagination--into an enchanted and unforgettable tale of love and intrigue. --Lisa Whipple ... Read more

Reviews (188)

Addictive and Scholarly
I never thought Possession would be the gripping, breathtaking novel it is when I first started reading it. After zipping through the first half , however, I began to realize Possession was more than just a romance, or just a critique on Victorian literature. The story is about two Victorian researchers, Maud and Roland who stumble upon a letter written by reputed Victorian Poet Ash, an uncontroversial figure believed to have led a smooth, rather bland, life. What follows is a series of inter-related clues that lead the two researchers into an unsolved literary mystery, which points on to a romantic relationship between Ash and a lesser known poet Christabel. The plot is taut and beautifully balanced and goes on to discuss the sexual-mores of the Victorians; their suppressions; their cravings.

The way the incidents fall in to place, perfectly, makes the story rather improbable at times, but the beauty of the whole novel is in its stunning imagery and the way the romance between the two Victorian poets blends with that of the two scholars who try to unravel the mysterious relationship between them. The balanced, masterly ending, unlike many books of today, is a real treat. The first half may not be very interesting, but once you cross the first half, the book is simply addictive.

SEE THE FILM TOO
Great book. Did you know that there was a movie made of this book ?It is also called "Possession".It is available on DVD. It was the only time I have sat in a theater ,totally undone,helplessly crying my eyes out and sobbing. It will MOVE you. The movie was so beautifully done,so incredibly romantic and heartbreakingly, hauntingly beautiful.And if any part of it reminds you,like it did me, of any person or past relationship then you will REALLY need a box of tissue and a good rest afterwards. It's worth it but you will not be the same afterwards. Poetic beyond anything I've ever seen.

Literature with a Capital "L"
It should be shouted from all the rooftops in the land that A.S. Byatt is an author of true insight and genius. She manages to create the present, the past, and the all the characters therein AND their poems and letters, each with a distinctive voice. Sure, the plot seems to stop dead at points where pages of someone's epic poem are inserted, but read them, they are SO worth it! (And they provide powerful insight into the character's mind and prowess as an author.) ... Read more

Isbn: 0679735909
Subjects:  1. Collectors and collecting    2. England    3. Fiction    4. Fiction - General    5. Literary    6. Literary historians    7. Manuscripts    8. Poets    9. Romance - General    10. Fiction / Literary    11. Reading Group Guide   

Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy)
by NAGUIB MAHFOUZ
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 December, 1990)
list price: $15.00 -- our price: $10.20
(price subject to change: see help)
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Reviews (51)

Dostoevsky of the middle East


"She woke at midnight. She always woke up then without having to rely on an alarm clock. A wish that had taken root in her awoke her with great accuracy."

N. Mahfouz Palace Walk

It is hard to read this book and not think that you know some of these people already. This is a rare opportunity to glance into the often secret Arab Psyche but in a past time. Mahfouz has been hailed as the Dostoevsky of the Arab world and I think this if quite fair. If you can really dig Brother's Karamazov then you should dig this book. During the hit that was on Salman Rushdie, Mahfouz was one of the prominent artists to come forward at great personal risk. This is truly deserving of the Nobel but is shamefully not as widely read as it should be. In the midst of the psychology and strange alleys and odd distortions this is simply a most beautiful story that will resonate in your mind for years.

Best,

N

Metaphorical Literalism
It started off a bit slow.In fact, it took a few weeks for me to read through the first six chapters.I'd heard he was the best of 20th century Arab authors.I did not find this to be the case.

Mahfouz is one of the best authors I've ever read.Mahfouz lays the groundwork for character development in the beginning, and we finally get to "one day"- the point in the story where things start to move.And things move so well, so beautifully, that it more than makes up for the slow start.There is rich description of Cairo life in the early 20th century, especially that of women in harem seclusion, and the resulting gulf of understanding between men and women.I have never read an author who so intimately merges the use of metaphorical description with direct telling of character emotions.We get to peer into the lives of characters, and into their minds, and see them as they truly are, and as they see themselves.It reminds me of myself, and real people around me, how we are, how we think we are- for Mahfouz writes people, not characters.We see the building up of identity, and how it can come crashing down- even when the character doesn't realize it.

After reading this book, finishing the last three pages, I was filled with a simple and unutterable "Wow."

A tale of affection, humour and sensitivity
The first volume in Mr Mahfouz's trilogy - Bayn al-quasrayn is its original title in Arabic - is set in Cairo a few months before the beginning of the revolution that ultimately lead to the independence of Egypt from the British Rule on April 7, 1919 (incidentally the year Mr Mahfouz was born). This magnificent tale tells the story of the Abd al-Jawad family who live in Palace Walk. Ahmed Abd al-Jawad and his wife Amina have two daughters, Khadija and Aisha, and three sons: Yasin is a secretary at al-Nashin school and the son of his father's previous marriage to Haniya, Fahmy is a law student and Kamal, a 10 year old boy.
As the reader follows the joys, sorrows and temptations of each member of the Abd al-Jawad family, he discovers what life used to be like in Cairo at the beginning of the last century. Mr Mahfouz's prose is full of psychological insight, both cultural and social observations and the tale is told with great affection, humour and sensitivity. It is also worth praising William Maynard Hutchinsons's achievement as a translator in this edition. ... Read more

Isbn: 0385264666
Sales Rank: 62907
Subjects:  1. African    2. Fiction    3. Fiction - General    4. Historical - General    5. Literary    6. Sagas    7. Fiction / General